Cotton Plant.Cotton Plant.
Gold.—How widely distributed—Alluvial Gold-mining—Vein Gold-mining—Nuggets—Treatment of Ore and Gold in the Transvaal—Story of South African Gold-fields—Gold-production of the World—Johannesburg the Golden City—Coolgardie Gold-fields—Bayley's discovery of Gold there.
Diamonds.—Composition—Diamond-cutting—Diamond-mining—Famous Diamonds—Cecil J. Rhodes and the Kimberley Mines.
I
n the getting of gold—the metal—for the purpose of possessing gold—as money—there has always been an element of excitement and romance.
'How quickly nature falls into revolt when gold becomes her object!' as Shakespeare says:
For gold the merchant ploughs the main,The farmer ploughs the manor.
There is a vast difference between the way in which the precious metal is now extracted and the primitive methods which were considered perfect in the earlier part of the century. The miner of fifty years ago never dreamt of machinery, costly and magnificent, capable of crushing thousands of tons of quartz per week. He 'dollied,' or ground, his little bits of rock by means of a contrivanceresembling a pestle and mortar, and it was only the very richest stone that repaid him for his labour. In fact, there was very little crushing in those days, quartz not being easily found sufficiently rich to make such work a paying concern, and it was therefore alluvial gold which was chiefly sought for. The gold-seeker having decided on the place where he was to make his first venture, provided himself with a shovel and pick and started for the 'diggings.' Gold-mining was then carried on all over California, and he had his choice of many camps.
The Hand-cradle Method of extracting Gold.The Hand-cradle Method of extracting Gold.
But what a wild and lawless place was California in those days! Here in these gold-fields were gathered together thousands of the greatest desperadoes that the earth could boast of, and thousands of needy, if harmless,adventurers from every country in the world. Fortunately with them were mixed thousands of honest hard-working men, of every condition in life, from the peer to the peasant, men who had been doing well, or fairly well, at their professions, or in their business offices at home, but for whom the attractions of this El Dorado had proved too powerful.
Gold is perhaps the most widely and universally sought product of the earth's crust. In the very earliest writings which have come down to us gold is mentioned as an object of men's search, and as a commodity of extreme value for purposes of adornment and as a medium of exchange. The importance which it possessed in ancient times has certainly not lessened in our day. Without the enormous supplies of gold produced at about the time when the steam-engine was being brought into practical use it is difficult to imagine how our commerce could have attained its present proportions; and but for the rush of immigrants to the gold-fields in the beginning of the second half of this century Australia might have remained a mere convict settlement, California have become but a granary and vineyard, and the Transvaal an asylum of the Boers who were discontented with the Cape government.
On the score of geographical distribution, gold must be deemed a common metal, as common as copper, lead, or silver, and far more common than nickel, cobalt, platinum, and many others. Theorists have propounded curious rules for the occurrence of gold on certain lines and belts, which have no existence but in their own fancy. Scarcely a country but has rewarded a systematic search for gold, though some are more richly endowed than others, and discoveries are not always made with the same facility. The old prejudices, which made men associate gold only with certain localities hindered the development of amost promising industry even within the British shores. Despite the abundant traces of ancient Roman and other workings, the gold-mines of Wales were long regarded as mythical; but recent extended exploitation has proved them to be rich. This is notably the case in the Dolgelly district, where considerable gold occurs, both in alluvial gravels and in well-formed quartz veins traversing the Lower Silurian Lingula beds and the intruded diabasic rocks called 'greenstone' in the Geological Survey. A peculiarity of the veins is the common association of magnesian minerals. The gold is about 20 or 21 carats fine, and often shows traces of iron sesquioxide. So long ago as 1861 some £10,000 worth of gold per annum was taken out of the Clogan mine by imperfect methods. Some samples have afforded 40 to 60 ounces per ton—a most remarkable yield. There are probably many veins still waiting discovery.
A calculation was made in 1881 that the total gold extracted from all sources up to that date from the creation had been over 10,000 tons, with a value of about 1500 millions sterling. California, to the end of 1888, was reckoned to have afforded over 200 million pounds' worth, and this figure is exceeded by the Australian colony of Victoria.
The origin of gold-bearing mineral veins is inseparably connected with that vexed question, the origin of mineral veins generally. By far the most common matrix of vein-gold is quartz or silica, but it is not the only one. To pass by the metals and metallic ores with which gold is found, there are several other minerals which serve as an envelope for the precious metal. Chief among them is lime. Some of the best mines of New South Wales are in calcareous veins. Sundry gold-reefs in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Bohemia are full of calcite. Dolomite occurs in Californian and Manitoban mines;and apatite, aragonite, gypsum, selenite, and crystalline limestone have all proved auriferous, while in some cases neighbouring quartz has been barren. Felspar in Colorado and felsite magnesian slate in Newfoundland carry gold.
Welcome Nugget.Welcome Nugget.
The physical conditions under which gold occurs are extremely variable. Popularly speaking, the most familiar form is the 'nugget,' or shapeless mass of appreciable size. These, however, constitute in the aggregate but a small proportion of the gold yielded by any field, and were much more common in the early days of placer-mining in California and Australia than they are now. One of the largest ever found, the 'Welcome' nugget, discovered in 1858 at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, weighed 2217 ounces 16 dwt., and sold for £10,500, whilst not a few have exceeded 1000 ounces. One found at Casson Hill, Calaveras county, California, in 1854, weighed 180 pounds. The 'Water Moon' nugget, found in Australia in 1852, weighed 223 pounds. The origin of these large nuggets has been a subject for discussion. Like all placer or alluvial gold,they have been in part at least derived from the auriferous veins traversing the rocks whose disintegration furnished the material forming the gravel beds in which the nuggets are found.
The famous nugget known as the 'Welcome Stranger' was discovered under singular circumstances in the Dunolly district of Victoria, which is one hundred and ten miles north-west of the capital, Melbourne, by two Cornish miners named Deeson and Oates. Their career is remarkable, as showing how fortune, after frowning for years, will suddenly smile on the objects of her apparent aversion. These two Cornishmen emigrated from England to Australia by the same vessel in 1854. They betook themselves to the far-famed Sandhurst Gold-field in Victoria; they worked together industriously for years, and yet only contrived to make a bare livelihood by their exertions. Thinking that change of place might possibly mean change of luck, they moved to the Dunolly Gold-field, and their spirits were considerably raised by the discovery of some small nuggets. But this was only a momentary gleam of sunshine, for their former ill-luck pursued them again, and pursued them even more relentlessly than before.
The time at last came, on the morning of Friday, February 5, 1869, when the storekeeper with whom they were accustomed to deal refused to supply them any longer with the necessaries of life until they liquidated the debt they had already incurred. For the first time in their lives they went hungry to work, and the spectacle of these two brave fellows fighting on an empty stomach against continued ill-luck must have moved the fickle goddess to pity and repentance. Gloomy and depressed as they naturally were, they plied their picks with indomitable perseverance, and while Deeson was breaking up the earth around the roots of a tree, his pick suddenly and sharply reboundedby reason of its having struck some very hard substance. 'Come and see what this is,' he called out to his mate. To their astonishment, 'this' turned out to be the 'Welcome Stranger' nugget; and thus two poverty-stricken Cornish miners became in a moment the possessors of the largest mass of gold that mortal eyes ever saw, or are likely to see again. Such a revolution of fortune is probably unique in the annals of the human race. Almost bewildered by the unexpected treasure they had found at their feet, Deeson and Oates removed the superincumbent clay, and there revealed to their wondering eyes was a lump of gold, a foot long and a foot broad, and so heavy that their joint strength could scarcely move it. A dray having been procured, the monster nugget was escorted by an admiring procession into the town of Dunolly, and carried into the local branch of the London Chartered Bank, where it was weighed, and found to contain 2268½ ounces of gold. The Bank purchased the nugget for £9534, which the erstwhile so unlucky, but now so fortunate, pair of Cornish miners divided equally between them. Whether the storekeeper who refused them the materials for a breakfast that morning apologised for his harsh behaviour, history relates not, but the probability is that he was paid the precise amount of his debt and no more; whereas, had he acted in a more generous spirit towards two brothers in distress, he might have come in for a handsome present out of the proceeds of the 'Welcome Stranger.'
The 'Welcome' nugget above mentioned, found at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, in Victoria, on June 15, 1858, was nearly as large as the one just described, its weight being 2217 ounces 16 dwts. It was found at a depth of one hundred and eighty feet in a claim belonging to a party of twenty-four men, who disposed of it for £10,500. A smaller nugget, weighing 571 ounces, was found in closeproximity to it. After being exhibited in Melbourne, the 'Welcome' nugget was brought to London and smelted in November 1859. The assay showed that it contained 99.20 per cent. of gold.
Another valuable nugget, which was brought to London and exhibited at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, was the 'Blanche Barkly,' found by a party of four diggers on August 27, 1857, at Kingower, Victoria, just thirteen feet beneath the surface. It was twenty-eight inches long, ten inches broad in its widest part, and weighed 1743 ounces 13 dwts. It realised £6905, 12s. 6d. A peculiarity about this nugget was the manner in which it had eluded the efforts of previous parties to capture it. Three years before its discovery, a number of miners, judging the place to be a 'likely' locality, had sunk holes within a few feet of the spot where this golden mass was reposing, and yet they were not lucky enough to strike it. What a tantalising thought it must have been in after-years, when they reflected on the fact that they were once within an arm's length of £7000 without being fortunate enough to grasp the golden treasure! Kingower, like Dunolly, from which it is only a few miles distant, is a locality famous for its nuggets. One weighing 230 ounces was actually found on the surface covered with green moss; and pieces of gold have frequently been picked up there after heavy rains, the water washing away the thin coating of earth that had previously concealed them. Two men working in the Kingower district in 1860 found a very fine nugget, weighing 805 ounces, within a foot of the surface; and one of 715 ounces was unearthed at Daisy Hill at a depth of only three and a half feet.
A notable instance of rapid fortune was that of a party of four, who, having been but a few months in the colony of Victoria, were lucky enough to alight on a nugget weighing 1615 ounces. They immediately returned toEngland with their prize and sold it for £5532, 7s. 4d. The place where they thus quickly made their 'pile,' to use an expressive colonialism, was Canadian Gully, at Ballarat, a very prolific nugget-ground. There was also found the 'Lady Hotham' nugget, called after the wife of Sir Charles Hotham, one of the early governors of Victoria. It was discovered on September 8, 1854, at a depth of 135 feet. Its weight was 1177 ounces; and near it were found a number of smaller nuggets of the aggregate weight of 2600 ounces, so that the total value of the gold extracted from this one claim was no less than £13,000. As showing the phenomenal richness of this locality, it may be added that on January 20, 1853, a party of three brought to the surface a solid mass of gold weighing 1117 ounces; and two days afterwards, in the same tunnel, a splendid pyramidal-shaped nugget weighing 1011 ounces was discovered; the conjoint value of the two being £7500.
A case somewhat similar to one already described was that of the 'Heron' nugget, a solid mass of gold to the amount of 1008 ounces, which was found at Fryer's Creek, Victoria, by two young men who had only been three months in the colony. They were offered £4000 for it in Victoria; but they preferred to bring it to England as a trophy, and there they sold it for £4080.
The 'Victoria' nugget, as its name suggests, was purchased by the Victorian government for presentation to Her Majesty. It was a very pretty specimen of 340 ounces, worth £1650, and was discovered at White Horse Gully, Sandhurst. Quite close to it, and within a foot of the surface, was found the 'Dascombe' nugget, weighing 330 ounces, which was also brought to London, and sold for £1500.
Just as a book should never be judged by its cover, so mineral substances should not be estimated by superficialindications. A neglect of this salutary precept was once very nearly resulting in the loss of a valuable Victorian nugget. A big lump of quartz was brought to the surface, and, as its exterior aspect presented only slight indications of the existence of gold, it was at first believed to be valueless; but as soon as the mass was broken up, there, embedded in the quartz, was a beautiful nugget of an oval shape.
New South Wales, the parent colony of the Australian group, has produced a considerable quantity of gold, but not many notable nuggets. Its most famous nugget was discovered by a native boy in June 1851 at Meroo Creek, near the present town of Bathurst. This black boy was in the employ of Dr Kerr as a shepherd, and one day, whilst minding his sheep, he casually came across three detached pieces of quartz. He tried to turn over the largest of the pieces with his stick; but he was astonished to find that the lump was much heavier than the ordinary quartz with which he was familiar. Bending down and looking closer, he saw a shining yellow mass lying near; and when he at last succeeded in lifting up the piece of quartz, his eyes expanded on observing that the whole of its under surface was of the same shining complexion. He probably did not realise the full value of his discovery; but he had sufficient sense to break off a few specimens and hasten to show them to his master. Dr Kerr set off at once to verify the discovery; and when he arrived at the spot, his most sanguine anticipations were fulfilled by the event. He found himself the possessor of 1272 ounces of gold; and he rewarded the author of his wealth, the little black boy, with a flock of sheep and as much land as was needed for their pasture.
The more common form of alluvial gold is as grains, or scales, or dust, varying in size from that of ordinary gunpowder to a minuteness that is invisible to the naked eye. Sometimes indeed the particles are so small that they are known as 'paint' gold, forming a scarcely perceptible coating on fragments of rock. When the gold is very fine or in very thin scales, much of it is lost in the ordinary processes for treating gravels, by reason of the fact that it will actually float on water for a considerable distance.
From what has been already said it will be evident that gold-mining must be an industry presenting several distinct phases. These may be classed as alluvial mining, vein-mining, and the treatment of auriferous ores.
In alluvial mining natural agencies, such as frost, rain, &c., have, in the course of centuries, performed the arduous tasks of breaking up the matrix which held the gold, and washing away much of the valueless material, leaving the gold concentrated into a limited area by virtue of its great specific gravity. Hence it is never safe to assume that the portion of the veins remaining as such will yield anything like so great an equivalent of gold as the alluvials formed from the portion which has been disintegrated. As water has been the chief (but not the only) agent in distributing the gold and gravel constituting alluvial diggings or placers, the banks and beds of running streams in the neighbourhood of auriferous veins are likely spots for the prospector, who finds in the flowing water of the stream the means of separating the heavy grains of gold from the much lighter particles of rock, sand, and mud. Often the brook is made to yield the gold it transports by the simple expedient of placing in it obstacles which will arrest the gold without obstructing the lightermatters. Jason's golden fleece was probably a sheepskin which had been pegged down in the current of the Phasis till a quantity of gold grains had become entangled among the wool. To this day the same practice is followed with ox-hides in Brazil, and with sheepskins in Ladakh, Savoy, and Hungary. This may be deemed the simplest form of 'alluvial mining.' If the gold deposited in holes and behind bars in the bed of the stream is to be recovered, greater preparations are needed. Either the river-bed must be dredged by floating dredgers, worked by the stream or otherwise; or the gravel must be dug out for washing while the bed is left dry in hot weather; or the river must be diverted into another channel (natural or artificial) whilst its bed is being stripped. The first-named method is best adapted to large volumes of water, but probably is least productive of gold, passing over much that is buried in crevices in the solid bed-rock. The second plan is applicable only to small streams, and entails much labour. The third is most efficient, but very liable to serious interference by floods, which entail a heavy loss of plant.
In searching for placers it is necessary to bear in mind that the watercourses of the country have not always flowed in the channels they now occupy. During the long periods of geological time many and vast changes have taken place in the contour of the earth's surface. Hence it is not an uncommon circumstance to find beds of auriferous gravel occupying the summits of hills, which must, at the time the deposit was made, have represented the course of a stream. In the same way the remains of riverine accumulations are found forming 'terraces' or 'benches' on the flanks of hills. Lacustrine beds may similarly occur at altitudes far above the reach of any existing stream, having been the work of rivers long since passed away.
Another form of alluvial digging occurs in Western America and New Zealand, where the sea washes up auriferous sands. These are known as 'ocean placers' or 'beach diggings,' and are of minor importance.
Whilst most placers have been formed by flowing water, some owe their origin to the action of ice, and are really glacial moraines. Others are attributed to the effects of repeated frost and thaw in decomposing the rocks and causing rearrangement of the component parts. Yet another class of deposits is supposed to have been accumulated by an outpouring of volcanic mud. And, finally, experts declare that some of the richbanketbeds of the Transvaal became auriferous by the infiltration of water containing a minute proportion of gold in solution.
In all cases the recovery of alluvial gold is in principle remarkably simple. It depends on the fact that the gold is about seven times as heavy, bulk for bulk, as the material forming the mass of the deposit. The medium for effecting the separation is water in motion. The apparatus in which it is applied may be a 'pan,' a 'cradle,' or a 'tom,' for operations on a very small scale, or a 'sluice,' which may be a paved ditch or a wooden 'flume' of great length, for large operations. The method is the same in all: flowing water removes the earthy matters, while obstructions of various kinds arrest the metal. As a rule, it is more advantageous to conduct the water to the material than to carry the material to water. In many cases a stream of water, conveyed by means of pipes, and acting under the influence of considerable pressure, is utilised for removing as well as washing the deposit. This method is known as 'piping' or 'hydraulicing' in America, where it has been chiefly developed, but is now forbidden in many localities, because the enormous masses of earth washed through the sluices have silted up rivers and harbours, and caused immense loss to the agriculturalinterest by burying the rich riverside lands under a deposit that will be sterile for many years to come. The plan permits of very economical working in large quantities, but is extremely wasteful of gold. The water-supply is of paramount importance, and has led to the construction of reservoirs and conduits, at very heavy cost, which in many places will have a permanent value long after gold-sluicing has ceased. These large water-supply works are often in the hands of distinct parties from the miners, the latter purchasing the water they use. To give an example of the results attained in alluvial mining, it may be mentioned that in a three-months' working in one Victorian district in1888, over 33,500 tons of wash-dirt were treated for an average yield of 18½ grains of gold per ton, or, say, one part in 700,000. Where water cannot be obtained recourse is had to a fanning or winnowing process for separating the gold from the sand, which, however, is less efficacious.
Hydraulic Gold-mining.Hydraulic Gold-mining.
Vein-mining for gold differs but little from working any other kind of metalliferous lode. When the vein-stuff has been raised it is reduced to a pulverulent condition, to liberate the gold from the gangue. In some cases roasting is first resorted to. This causes friability, and facilitates the subsequent comminution. When the gold is in a very fine state, too, it helps it to agglomerate. But if any pyrites are present the effect is most detrimental, the gold becoming coated with a film of sulphur or a glazing of iron oxide. The powdering of the vein-stuff is usually performed in stamp batteries, which consist of a number of falling hammers. While simple in principle, the apparatus is complicated in its working parts, and is probably destined to give way to the improved forms of crushing-rolls and centrifugal roller mills, which are less costly, simpler, more efficient, and do not flatten the gold particles so much. One of the most effective is that by Jordan. When the vein-stuff has been reduced to powder, it is akin to alluvial wash-dirt, and demands the same or similar contrivances for arresting the liberated gold and releasing the tailings—that is, mercury troughs, amalgamated plates, blanket strakes, &c.; but, in addition, provision is made for catching the other metalliferous constituents, such as pyrites, which almost always carry a valuable percentage of gold. These pyrites or 'sulphurets' are cleansed by concentration in various kinds of apparatus, all depending on the greater specific gravity of the portion sought to be saved.
Of the metals and minerals with which gold is found intimately associated in nature are the following: Antimony,arsenic, bismuth, cobalt, copper, iridium, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, selenium, silver, tellurium, tungsten, vanadium, and zinc, often as an alloy in the case of palladium, platinum, selenium, silver (always), and tellurium. The methods of separation vary with the nature of the ore and the conditions of the locality.
The method of treatment of ore and gold in the Transvaal, the most perfect and effective known at the present time, has thus been described by Arthur Stenhouse:
The rock when hoisted out of the mine is first assorted, the waste rock being thrown on one side and the gold-bearing ore broken into lumps by a stone-breaker. The lumps of ore now pass by gravitation and feeders through a battery (or stamp mill), each stamp of which weighs about 1150 pounds, every stamp being lifted and dropped separately by the cam shaft at a speed of about 95 drops a minute. A stream of water is introduced, the ore is crushed into fine sand, and is carried by the water over a series of inclined copper plates, which are coated with quicksilver. The free gold in the sand at once amalgamates with the quicksilver on the plates, and the sand-laden stream continues on its course.
The sand, having now passed over the plates, is carried by launders on to the concentrators, or frue vanners. These concentrators separate and retain the heavy sand (or concentrates), whilst the lighter sand is carried by gravitation through a trough (or launder) to the cyanide vats.
The stream of water carrying the lighter sand emptiesitself into the cyanide vats, and as each successive vat is filled up, the water is allowed to drain through the sand. A solution of cyanide of potassium is then pumped up and evenly distributed (by distributors) over the sand, and dissolves the gold in its progress, leaving pure sand alone in the vat. The gold-containing liquid (or solution) having left the vat, is led into a series of boxes filled with zinc shavings, the gold separates from the liquid, and settles on the zinc shavings in the shape of a small black powder. The cyanide solution now freed from the gold runs into the solution vats, and is restrengthened and ready for further use.
Gold Recovery.—In the mill or battery the copper plates are scraped daily, and the amalgams (that is, quicksilver and gold) are weighed and placed in the safe in charge of the battery manager. This amalgam is generally retorted once a week, that is to say, the quicksilver is evaporated (but not lost) and the gold is left in the retort. This retorted gold is then smelted into bars.
The concentrates recovered by the frue vanners are generally treated by chlorination (roasted). This process is gone through so that the iron can be separated from the gold. Concentrates are sometimes treated by cyanide, but the process, if cheaper, is slow and less effective. Chlorinated gold is also smelted into bars.
Cyanide.—The gold from the zinc shavings is recovered by retorting. It is afterwards melted into bars and called 'cyanide gold.'
Slimes (or float gold) are generally conserved in a dam, and when the quantity is sufficient they are treated by chlorination, or by a solution of cyanide of potassium.
After treatment all sand is still retained, and is really a small unbooked asset of the various gold-mining companies. The Rand undoubtedly is the best field to-dayfor students who wish to acquire the details of gold recovery. In no other country has science produced such excellent results. At least 95 per cent. of the gold in the ore can now be recovered, and scientific men from all countries are resident on the fields, and advantageous discoveries in the treatment of various ores are of almost daily occurrence.
There is material for the philosopher in the fact of gold-finding having occurred in connection with a part of the world to which King Solomon the Wise sent for supplies of gold and 'almug-trees,' for the mysterious Ophir has been located in Mashonaland, and the Queen of Sheba identified with the Sabia districts, which, though not in 'the Randt,' are curiously connected with the rise and progress of the mania.
Let us briefly trace that romantic history, merely mentioning by the way that, even in European history, African gold is no novelty, for the Portuguese brought back gold-dust (and negro slaves) from Cape Bojador four hundred and fifty years ago. The ruins of Mashonaland were discovered in 1864 by Karl Mauch, who also discovered the gold-field of Taté on the Zambesi, of which Livingstone had reported that the natives got gold there by washing, being too lazy to dig for it. When Karl Mauch came back to civilisation, people laughed at his stories of ruined cities in the centre of Africa as travellers' fables, but a number of Australian gold-diggers thought his report of the Taté gold-field good enough to follow up. So about 1867, a band of them went out and set up a small battery on the Taté River for crushing the quartz. Thismay be called the first serious attempt at gold-mining in South Africa since the days of the lost races who built the cities whose ruins Karl Mauch discovered and which Mr Theodore Bent has described. A Natal company assisted the Taté diggers with supplies, and enough gold was found to justify the floating of the Limpopo Mining Company in London. This was in 1868, and was practically the foundation of the 'Kaffir Circus,' though its founders knew it not. Sir John Swinburne was the moving spirit of this enterprise, and went out with a lot of expensive machinery, only to meet with a good deal of disappointment. The diamond discoveries in Griqualand soon drew away the gold-seekers, who found the working expenses too heavy to leave gold-mining profitable, and for a time the Taté fields were deserted. They were taken up again, however, twenty years later by a Kimberley enterprise, out of which developed the Taté Concession and Exploration Company, to whom the unfortunate potentate Lobengula granted a mining concession over no less than eight hundred thousand square miles of Matabeleland.
Just as the Australians were breaking ground on the Taté, Thomas Baines, the traveller, was making up his mind to test the truth of tales of gold in the far interior, which the Portuguese from Da Gama onwards had received from natives. In 1869 he set forth from Natal with a small expedition, and in 1870 received from Lobengula permission to dig for gold anywhere between the rivers Gwailo and Ganyona. Some seventeen years later this same concession was repeated to Mr Rudd, and became the basis from which sprang the great Chartered Company of British South Africa.
In the course of his journey, Baines encamped on the site of the present city of Johannesburg, without having the least idea of the wealth beneath him, and intent only upon that he hoped to find farther inland. On the mapwhich he prepared of this journey is marked the 'farm of H. Hartley, pioneer of the gold-fields,' in the Witwatersrandt district. Hartley was known to the Boers as 'Oude Baas,' and was a famous elephant-hunter, but as ignorant as Baines himself that he was dwelling on the top of a gold-reef. And it was not in the Witwatersrandt, foremost as it now is, that the African gold boom began.
While the Taté diggers were pursuing their work and Baines his explorations, a Natalian named Button went, with an experienced Californian miner named Sutherland, to prospect for gold in the north-east of the Transvaal. They found it near Lydenburg, and companies were rapidly formed in Natal to work it. Such big nuggets were sent down that men hurried up, until soon there were some fifteen hundred actively at work on the Lydenburg field. The operations were fairly profitable, but the outbreak of the Zulu war, and then the Boer war, put an end to them for some years.
And now we come to one of the most romantic chapters in the golden history of South Africa, a history which was marked by hard and disheartening days what time the lucky diamond-seekers at Kimberley were swilling champagne, as if it were water, out of pewter beer-pots. There is more attraction for adventurers, however, in gold-seeking than in diamond-mining, for gold can be valued and realised at once, whereas diamonds may not be diamonds after all, and may be spoilt, lost, or stolen, before they can find a purchaser.
It is to be noted that much as the Transvaal Republic has benefited from gold-mining, the Boers were at first much averse to it, and threw all the obstacles they could in the way of the miners. And it was this attitude of the Boers, especially towards the Lydenburg pioneers, that led to the next development.
One of the tributaries of the Crocodile River (whichflows into Delagoa Bay) is the Kaap River, called also the River of the Little Crocodile, which waters a wide deep valley into which projects the spur of a hill which the Dutch pioneers called De Kaap (the cape). Beyond this cape-like spur the hills rise to a height of three thousand feet, and carry a wide plateau covered with innumerable boulders of fantastic shape—the Duivel's Kantoor. The mists gather in the valley and dash themselves against De Kaap like surf upon a headland; and the face of the hills is broken with caves and galleries as if by the action of the sea, but really by the action of the weather. Upon the high-lying plateau of the Duivel's Kantoor were a number of farms, the chief of which was held by one G. P. Moodie.
One day a Natal trader named Tom M'Laughlin had occasion to cross this plateau in the course of a long trek, and he picked up with curiosity some of the bits of quartz he passed, or kicked aside, on the way. On reaching Natal he showed these to an old Australian miner, who instantly started up-country and found more. The place was rich in gold, and machinery was as quickly as possible got up from Natal, on to Moodie's farm. On this farm was found the famous Pioneer Reef, and Moodie, who at one time would gladly have parted with his farm for a few hundreds, sold his holding to a Natal company for something like a quarter of a million. Then there was a rush of diggers and prospectors back from the Lydenburg district, and the De Kaap 'boom' set in. The beginning was in 1883, and two years later the whole Kaap valley and Kantoor plateau was declared a public gold-field. Two brothers called Barber came up and formed the centre of a settlement, now the town of Barberton. Every new reef sighted or vein discovered was the signal for launching a new company—not now in Natal only, but also in London, to which the gold-fever began to spread (but was checked again by the De Kaap reverses).
Some fifteen Natalians formed a syndicate to 'exploit' this country on their own account. Some were storekeepers in the colony, some wagon-traders, and some merely waiters on fortune. Only eleven of them had any money, and they supplied the wherewithal for the other four, who were sent up to prospect and dig. After six months of fruitless toil, the money was all done, and word was sent to the four that no more aid could be sent to them. They were 'down on their luck,' when as they returned to camp on what was intended to be their last evening there, one Edwin Bray savagely dug his pick into the rock as they walked gloomily along. But with one swing which he made came a turn in the fortunes of the band, and of the land, for he knocked off a bit of quartz so richly veined with gold as to betoken the existence of something superexcellent in the way of a 'reef.' All now turned on the rock with passionate eagerness, and in a very short time pegged out what was destined to be known as 'Bray's Golden Hole.'
But the syndicate were by this time pretty well cleaned out, and capital was needed to work the reef, and provide machinery, &c. So a small company was formed in Natal under the name of the Sheba Reef Gold-mining Company, divided into 15,000 shares of £1 each, the capital of £15,000 being equitably allotted among the fifteen members of the syndicate. Upon these shares they raised enough money on loan to pay for the crushing of 200 tons of quartz, which yielded eight ounces of gold to the ton, and at once provided them with working capital. Within a very few months the mine yielded 10,000 ounces of gold, and the original shares of £1 each ran up by leaps and bounds until they were eagerly competed for at £100 each. Within a year, the small share-capital (£15,000) of the original syndicate was worth in the market a million and a half sterling. This wonderful success led to the floating of a vast number of hopeless or bogus enterprises, and worthless properties were landed on the shoulders of the British public at fabulous prices. Yet, surrounded as it was by a crowd of fraudulent imitators, the great Sheba Mine has continued as one of the most wonderfully productive mines in South Africa. Millions have been lost in swindling and impossible undertakings in De Kaap, but the Sheba Mountain, in which was Bray's Golden Hole, has really proved a mountain of gold.
The De Kaap gold-field had sunk again under a cloud of suspicion, by reason of the company-swindling and share-gambling which followed upon the Sheba success, when another startling incident gave a fresh impetus to the golden madness.
Among the settlers in the Transvaal in the later seventies were two brothers called Struben, who had had some experience, though not much success, with the gold-seekers at Lydenburg, and who took up in 1884 the farm of Sterkfontein in the Witwatersrandt district. While attending to the farm they kept their eyes open for gold, and one day one of the brothers came upon gold-bearing conglomerates, which they followed up until they struck the famous 'Confidence Reef.' This remarkable reef at one time yielded as much as a thousand ounces of gold and silver to the ton of ore, and then suddenly gave out, being in reality not a 'reef' but a 'shoot.' There were other prospectors in the district, but none had struck it so rich as the Strubens, who purchased the adjacent farm to their own, and set up a battery to crush quartz, both for themselves and for the other gold-hunters. The farms were worth little in those days, being only suitable for grazing; but when prospectors and company promoters began to appear, first by units, then by tens, and then by hundreds, the Boers put up their prices, and speedilyrealised for their holdings ten and twenty times what they would have thought fabulous a year or two previously. And it was on one of these farms that the city of Johannesburg was destined to arise as if under a magician's wand, from a collection of huts, in eight years, to a city covering an area three miles by one and a half, with suburbs stretching many miles beyond, with handsome streets and luxurious houses, in the very heart of the desert.
Prospecting for Gold.Prospecting for Gold.
It was one Sunday evening in 1886 that the great 'find' was made which laid the base of the prosperity of the Johannesburg-to-be. A farm-servant of the brothers Struben went over to visit a friend at a neighbouring farm, and as he trekked homeward in the evening, knocked off a bit of rock, the appearance of which led him to take it home to his employer. It corresponded with what Struben had himself found in another part, and following up both leads, revealed what became famous as the Main Reef, which was traced for miles east and west.
A lot of the 'conglomerate' was sent on to Kimberley to be analysed, and a thoughtful observer of the analysis there came to the conclusion that there must be more good stuff where that came from. So he mounted his horse and rode over to Barberton, where he caught a 'coach' which dropped him on the Rand, as it is now called. There he quietly acquired the Langlaagte farm for a few thousands, which the people on the spot thought was sheer madness on his part. But his name was J. B. Robinson, and he is now known in the 'Kaffir Circus' and elsewhere as one of the 'Gold Kings' of Africa. He gradually purchased other farms, and in a year or two floated the well-known Langlaagte Company with a capital of £450,000, to acquire what had cost him in all about £20,000. In five years this company turned out gold to the value of a million, and paid dividends to the amount of £330,000. The Robinson Company, formeda little later to acquire and work some other lots, in five years produced gold to the value of one and a half million, and paid to its shareholders some £570,000 in dividends. With these discoveries and successful enterprises the name and fame of 'the Rand' were established, and for years the district became the happy hunting-ground of the financiers and company promoters. The Rand, or Witwatersrandt, is the topmost plateau of the High Veldt of the Transvaal, at the watershed of the Limpopo and the Vaal; and on the summit of the plateau is the gold-city of Johannesburg, some five thousand seven hundred feet above the sea.
Soon the principal feature in Johannesburg was the Stock Exchange, and the main occupation of the inhabitants was the buying and selling of shares in mining companies, many of them bogus, at fabulous prices. The inevitable reaction came, until once resplendent 'brokers' could hardly raise the price of a 'drink;' though, to be sure, drinks and everything else cost a small fortune. To-day the city is the centre of a great mining industry, and the roar of the 'stamps' is heard all round it, night and day. From a haunt of gamblers and 'wild-catters,' it has grown into a comparatively sedate town of industry, commerce, and finance, and the gold-fever which maddened its populace has been transferred (not wholly, perhaps) to London and Paris.
The Stock Exchange of Johannesburg sprang into existence in 1887, and before the end of that year some sixty-eight mining companies were on its list, with an aggregate nominal capital of £3,000,000. During the 1895 'boom' in the market for mining shares in London and Paris, the market value of the shares of the group of South African companies was in the aggregate over £300,000,000! It is true that these are not all gold-mining shares, but the great majority are of companies either for or in connectionwith gold-mining. In 1887 the Transvaal produced only about 25,000 ounces of gold; in 1894 the output was 2,024,159 ounces; in 1895 it was 2,277,633 ounces.
Just before the Californian discoveries—namely, in 1849, the world's annual output of gold was only about £6,000,000. Then came the American and Australian booms, raising the quantity produced in 1853 to the value of £30,000,000. After 1853 there was a gradual decline to less than £20,000,000 in 1883. This was the lowest period, and then the De Kaap and other discoveries in Africa began to raise the total slowly again. Between 1883 and 1887 the El Callao mine in South America and the Mount Morgan in Australia helped greatly to enlarge the output, and then in 1807 the 'Randt' began to yield of its riches. The following are the estimates of a mining-expert of the world's gold production during 1890, £23,700,000; 1891, £26,130,000; 1892, £29,260,000; 1893, £31,110,000; 1894, £36,000,000; 1895, £40,000,000.
As to the future of the South African sources of supply, it is estimated by Messrs Hatch and Chalmers, mining engineers, who have published an exhaustive work on the subject, that before the end of the present century the Witwatersrandt mines alone will be yielding gold to the value of £20,000,000 annually; that early next century they will turn out £26,000,000 annually; and that the known resources of the district are equal to a total production within the next half century of £700,000,000, of which, probably, £200,000,000 will be clear profit over the cost of mining.
These estimates are considered excessive by some authorities; nevertheless it is to be remembered that the productivity of deep level mining has not yet been properly tested, that even the Transvaal itself has not yet been thoroughly exploited, and that there is every reason tobelieve that Matabeleland and Mashonaland are also rich in gold. But we have not to look to Africa alone. In Australia, besides the regular sources of supply which are being industriously developed, new deposits are being opened up in Western Australia at such a rate that some people predict that the 'Cinderella of the Colonies' will soon become the richest, or one of the richest, members of the family.
The following shows the contributions towards the world's gold supply on the basis of 1894: